com­ing “home”

Sep­tem­ber has wrought its usu­al mir­a­cle of replac­ing one part of our lives with another.

The re-entry to our Lon­don exis­tence is a mind-bend­ing com­bi­na­tion of sad­ness at leav­ing Red Gate Farm, ela­tion at again hear­ing Eng­lish accents all around, see­ing our new home after our sum­mer away, reunit­ing with the kit­ties who are grat­i­fy­ing­ly hap­py to see us.  They were thrilled to be let out into the gar­den for the first time.

There’s the fun of going to the gro­cery, full of Eng­lish treats, to fill an emp­ty fridge.  How hap­py it makes me to set­tle into a new kitchen.

Then there’s unpack­ing the weird things we bring home with us (like euca­lyp­tus and spearmint sham­poo, prop­er Ziplock bags and Fox Point Sea­son­ing), going through the enor­mous piles of mail (includ­ing sev­en Hel­lo! mag­a­zines, how heav­en­ly).  We wan­der around the house acquaint­ing our­selves with where we put the knives and forks, where the light switch­es are (still work­ing on that one), and we dis­cov­er lit­tle touch­es of our new lives here that are a real plea­sure, like a mass of laven­der grow­ing right out­side the front door.  Walk­ing up the front path is an aro­mat­ic delight.

There is the irre­place­able joy of find­ing our friends again!  Elspeth and Min­nie were the kind souls who attached our wel­come sign to the front door, so while Avery and Min­nie head­ed off to a par­ty, Elspeth dropped in to join us and our beau­ti­ful house-sit­ter, now house-guest, Elsie.

It was but the work of a moment to break out the pots and pans to cre­ate the first din­ner par­ty in our new house.  What do you get when you put every­thing from the fridge into the food proces­sor and then rub it on a but­ter­flied leg of lamb?  Uma­mi heaven.

Ulti­mate Savoury Rub

(makes enough to coat a leg of lamb to grill, a chick­en to roast, etc.)

1 tbsp each:

capers

fresh rose­mary, fresh thyme, fresh chives

Madeira or Marsala wine

Worces­ter sauce

2 tbsps butter

2 tbsps olive oil

6 anchovies

4 cloves garlic

1 shal­lot

1/2 lemon, skin and all

Process every­thing togeth­er and rub it all over the cut of meat you are prepar­ing, then mar­i­nate in a fridge for as long as you can, a min­i­mum of two hours.

**************

This lamb was gor­geous.  Some­how all the com­pet­ing fla­vors of the rub sim­ply get along beau­ti­ful, with cit­rus notes sit­ting hap­pi­ly along­side the intense fishi­ness of anchovies, the woody fla­vors of the fresh herbs, the heady notes of liquor.  Beautiful.

I served this with what pos­si­bly the world’s finest pota­to dish.  End­less thanks to my pal Becky who made these for me many years ago.  We think of her every time we cook them.  With roast­ed bal­sam­ic-glazed beets, it was quite pos­si­bly a per­fect din­ner for a chilly ear­ly Sep­tem­ber night.

A new week dawned, bring­ing with it the usu­al sus­pects: Lost Prop­er­ty (always amus­ing and filthy), social work meet­ings, and new class­es for Avery.  She is beyond thrilled to have dropped all the ogres from her shoul­ders — no more sci­ences!  no more maths!  Latin, good­bye, see you lat­er French — and to have picked up two new friends: pol­i­tics and eco­nom­ics.  Sud­den­ly she comes home from school with a smile on her beau­ti­ful face and a book bag full of trea­sures, with ques­tions and ideas overflowing.

Even her read­ing for relax­ation looks intim­i­dat­ing to me.

Best of all, pos­si­bly, is the slate of rehearsals for the school musi­cal.  Hear­ing her tales of the cast and the big num­bers cer­tain­ly takes me back to the hap­py days of my own high school life.

We’ve had the first Par­ents Guild meet­ing, feel­ing elat­ed as always at being part of this incred­i­ble school com­mu­ni­ty.  It’s always just plain fun to sit in the dra­mat­ic Old Library, sur­round­ed by floor-to-ceil­ing oak carved book­shelves, sit­ting at the enor­mous old tables under the paint­ed gaze of for­mer High Mis­tress­es, under the plas­ter ceil­ing rosettes and glow­ing lights.  We set the world to rights that evening, appor­tion­ing mon­ey to girls’ trav­el adven­tures, help­ing the school to buy new machin­ery to record an oral his­to­ry from the clean­ing and cook­ing staff, to acquire spe­cial masks for the the­atre depart­ment.  All such fun to dis­cuss.  How I love any­thing to do with that won­der­ful school.

The week­end brought, of course, ring­ing!  What a delight to be reunit­ed with my beloved band at the tow­er of St Mary’s.  Unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly for this grey coun­try, the skies shone bright blue to wel­come me back to church.

It’s impos­si­ble to explain the fun of return­ing to a hob­by that dri­ves me mad with its impos­si­bly dif­fi­cult skills, the result­ing blis­ters on my fin­gers, the embar­rass­ing dis­cov­ery that I had for­got­ten almost every­thing I ever knew how to do!  My patient teacher Edward paus­es, rope in hand, after a par­tic­u­lar­ly dis­as­trous attempt at Plain Hunt­ing.  “Per­haps a bit of… revi­sion is in order,” he says mild­ly, to a burst of laugh­ter from all of us.  I adore him, and St Mary’s, and every­thing about the bell cham­ber, scene of so many tri­umphs and… not.

We’ve been reunit­ed with our bicy­cles, and John and I spend plen­ty of time cycling around in an aim­less sort of way, acquaint­ing our­selves with our new neigh­bor­hood.  Is there a short cut to the high street?  We haven’t found it yet.  But it’s love­ly to be back in the saddle.

The blue sky could­n’t last of course, this being Eng­land.  All that was need­ed was for me to wash my bed­room duvet and hang it on the clothes­line in the gar­den, for the skies to open.

To chase away the rainy blues, and to keep at bay the bit of melan­choly that always dogs me on this anniver­sary of Sep­tem­ber 11, I set­tled down in the kitchen this after­noon to make my fool­proof (the fool being me) ally, Avery’s favorite thing for breakfast.

Lemon Blue­ber­ry Driz­zle Cake

(serves 8 for break­fast or teatime)

225 grams (one cup) unsalt­ed but­ter, softened
225 grams (one cup) cast­er (ordi­nary Amer­i­can) sugar
4 eggs
zest of 3 lemons, fine­ly grated
zest of 1 lime, fine­ly grated
225 grams (one cup) self-rais­ing flour, or plain flour with 1 tsp bak­ing pow­der added

driz­zle topping
juice of 3 lemons
85 grams (1/3 cup) cast­er sugar

Beat the but­ter and sug­ar till soft and fluffy, then beat in eggs one at a time. Stir in zests and flour gen­tly until ful­ly mixed (includ­ing the bak­ing pow­der if you are using plain flour). Tip into a loaf pan and smooth the top flat with a spoon. Lick the spoon.

Bake for about 45–60 min­utes in an oven set to 185C/350F. Watch care­ful­ly, because all ovens are dif­fer­ent. Take care not to burn the bot­tom or brown the top too much. The cake is done when the mid­dle of the top does­n’t jig­gle when pressed gen­tly. Err on the side of bak­ing less rather than longer.

Cool cake enough so that you can han­dle the tin. In the mean­time, mix the lemon juice and sug­ar till dis­solved. Prick the top of the cake all over with a fork and then SLOW­LY driz­zle the mix­ture over it. If you driz­zle too fast, the mix­ture will end up all slid­ing down the sides of the cake. Serve warm.

And so the “new year” (as any­one with chil­dren, how­ev­er grownup, feels that Sep­tem­ber is) begins.  We are qui­et­ly hap­py to be back, and ready for the chal­lenges and joys that await us, here at “home.”